It’s unusual to observe collaboration as it is happening. It is far more common to celebrate the success of collaboration after its culminated.
Crestwood’s collaboration with San Diego Health Care Hospital system and San Diego County Behavioral Health Services has provided an incredible opportunity to observe it in real time with measurable milestones and outcomes.
This collaboration story began in 1992 when a case manager from San Diego County was seeking a placement for a very challenging client and a Crestwood facility in northern California was willing to take a chance. Later that case manager’s program manager got a chance to visit this client at the Crestwood Facility in northern California. What she saw there that day left a very positive impression that she remembered for many years to come. This was the first collaboration between Crestwood and San Diego County and set the stage for future events. Fast forward to 2013 when that very astute and dedicated program manager, Anna La Rocca Palid, LCSW, who is now a leader as a Behavioral Health Program Coordinator in San Diego County Behavioral Health Services, contacted Crestwood about the need in San Diego County for secured behavioral healthcare services. The county had grown tremendously and there were more challenging people to serve and insufficient programs to serve them. They needed a provider to work with the community and them to serve at least 40 clients requiring intensive, secured, recovery-based services. The county also wanted a provider who thinks outside the box, has creative individualized employment programs, recovery services and focuses on integrated alternative tools for clients and they chose Crestwood to be that provider.
Crestwood and San Diego County Behavioral Health Services began devising a plan to address the county’s needs. Crestwood found a beautiful site for a 42-bed Mental Health Rehabilitation Center (MHRC) on a hospital campus in San Diego and created the first of two programs – Crestwood San Diego. Crestwood San Diego opened in June 2014 and quickly filled up with 42 clients. Before long, there was a flow of individuals successfully reintegrating into the community and new admissions moving into the program. The hospitals in the area felt a sense of relief and the new services served their purpose with helping many clients with their recovery.
Soon Crestwood San Diego was full and the San Diego County behavioral healthcare system again felt the pressure of impacted Emergency Departments, long waiting lists at the psychiatric hospitals and a bottleneck in the mental health system. So they looked among themselves to find a possible location for a 40-bed MHRC. Paradise Valley Hospital found a location that would work. Crestwood and Paradise Valley Hospital started discussions about creating a 40-bed MHRC on this site. Dimitrios Alexiou, FACHE, President and CEO of The Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties and San Diego County Behavioral Health Services worked very closely together to successfully garner support from the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and the community to commit to the 40-bed MHRC in Chula Vista. Crestwood and Paradise Valley Hospital invested significantly in an extensive refurbishing project to create a beautiful, homelike, welcoming recovery-based MHRC known as Crestwood Chula Vista. Crestwood Chula Vista opened in July 2015 and is Crestwood’s ninth MHRC in California.
Collaboration is working with others to do a task and to achieve shared goals. The wonderful collaboration of these groups created an environment that enabled San Diego County Behavioral Health Services to provide beds to some of the clients in greatest need for these services, helping them with their recovery and easing stress in the community and local hospital emergency rooms. It is clear to see that through collaboration we can make a difference.